US Soldiers throw a puppy off a cliff -moved-

I haven’t seen the clip, and I don’t want to. It sounds awful. I want to object though, to the way that this is being portrayed - for all a lot of people know, watching this clip, this is what our soldiers or Marines busy themselves doing. They’re either throwing puppies off cliffs or “murdering” Iraqis in “cold blood.” That isn’t true at all. Most of these guys are protecting our freedom as United States citizens. But will we hear that? No, we hear what “murderous slobs” the U.S. Military is. I’m not stating that this clip isn’t terrible, or that these guys shouldn’t be ashamed of themselves. What I AM stating is that we should be seeing what our guys are doing to protect and serve their country, so that we get the truth of the matter. Boy, what ever happened to patriotism and love of country?

JerryLewis, what exactly are you objecting to here? The comments on this thread? I must say your sentiments have already been expressed by one poster after another. Elsewhere on the Internet this is also what I have seen. Virtually every negative thing generated by this is particular to the guys who did this, not to the military in general. Here and there, if you look hard, I'm sure you could find things that generalize the disgust to the military as a whole. But that's not a big part of what I'm reading.

There has always been a certain number of very messed-up people who enlist for some very dark reasons. Getting to legally blow stuff up and kill people will always have an attraction for the sociopaths among us, and some of those are drawn like magnets to military life. You literally can't have a military career without running into those folks from time to time. I've worked closely with active-duty Marines, and most of them are adorable! Funny, smart, dedicated, great-looking, brave, upright, then there's the one who makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. And yes, every big group has its bad apples: teachers, clergy, realtors, politicians, Boy Scout leaders ... but most of those people aren't heavily armed with advanced training in weaponry and close-quarters combat.

I'm sure the military is doing all it knows how to, trying to weed out their sickos. But right now, while they need every warm body that will sign on the dotted line, their priorities are more about keeping people than getting rid of them. As long as that is the case, this sort of thing will happen more often than it usually would.

The guy that threw the pup is from here in Washington state. It has been on the news here. It is terribly wrong, But it is not the fault of the military, nor is it the fault of this mans family. Some stupid ass posted this mans home address and his family has been the recipients of some pretty nasty comments and threats, even death threats. That is equally as disgusting, as it is not their fault for what someone else did. People need to think before they speak and threaten innocent people. The military is checking into it, and if he is found guilty, he will be dealt with by them, and punished for what he did. His family certainly does not need to bear the brunt of his actions.

If you are a dog and your owner suggests that you wear a sweater, suggest that he wear a tail.

Did anything happen to Micheal Vick's family, when he and his gang tortured and killed so many dogs?(meaning was his family threatened) This should be less about the military, than it should be about the sickness and cruelty that children are raised with, and allowed to get away with. This sick, slack jawed specimen ,probably had a relative who was an extra in Deliverance.

Although I certainly do not condone the harassment and threats to the family, I do not believe that they are completely blameless, especially his patents. The apple does not usually fall far from the tree. If he is that messed up that he can do something like this and laugh about it without a hint of compunction, odds are it had something to do with his upbringing and the morals and ethics he was thought at home. I mean, you don’t just become the person you are over night. It takes years and years of practice, practice he got at home over the last 20 years or so.

Subtlety is the art of saying what you think and getting out of the way before it is understood.

Oh please....Why is it that whenever someone does something wrong its traced back to his parents or his upbringing. What a crock of crap. Thats whats wrong with this world today is no one wants to believe that there are just "bad" people. They want to point the blame on someone else for them being bad. There are alot of children being abused everyday and living in bad family situations, but they dont all grow up to live lives of crime. Its not how we are brought up, its how we choose to live our lives once we go out into the world on our own. We make our own choices in this world and we can not blame those choices on anyone but ourselves.

If you are a dog and your owner suggests that you wear a sweater, suggest that he wear a tail.

I agree with Dusty here. Of course upbringing makes a huge difference in what kind of people we become. But sociopaths -- people without conscience, heart, scruples, or emotions with much in common with ours -- can come out of any kind of upbringing at all. Their brains are wired differently than ours -- things that make most of us experience fear, love, or remorse just don't faze them. Somewhere between 1 and 4 percent of people are thought to be sociopaths (depending on how they define it), and the percentage is believed to be much higher in the military.

Please don't think I'm trying to excuse the behaviors. I just think that the more we can find out about how they tick, the better we can protect ourselves from these people, limit the havoc they can wreak.

Ah, the good ol’ nature vs nurture debate. Smarter wiser people have debated this since the dawn of time. Not going to touch that one.

That reminds me of the show Dexter. A perfect example of how proper nurturing can even turn an extreme homicidal sociopath in to a productive member of society with out changing his true nature, which actually serves to support both sides of the argument. It is just fictional show of course, but it sure makes you think.

Subtlety is the art of saying what you think and getting out of the way before it is understood.

He alone should take the blame, not go back and blame the family, place threats, blame the military...thats ridiculous! At some point in life, adults must take responsibility for their choices and not look around for who to blame for what they themselves did.

People are like slinky's, not really good for much. But its still fun to push them down the stairs.

I am also with Dusty on this one. This is not some young boy who did something cruel and evil. This is a grown man who is responsible for his own actions.

Unless it is proven that his parents raised him to be a sociopath, ie, "Aw, isn't that cute, little Johnny learned how to tie the cats' tails together and throw them over the clothesline so they will tear each other apart", they should not have to deal with harassment and threats.

I deal with teens every weekday at work, have raised my own 3 kids and a few to spare who were tossed out like yesterday's newspaper. I have been a leader for both Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

I have seen kids go bad because of a lack of parenting. I have seen kids with the worst, uncaring parents turn out to be wonderful, loving, productive adults. I have also seen kids who have had wonderful, caring parents who are just plain evil. Once someone is old enough to serve in the military, I'd pretty much consider him a grown man, responsible for his own actions.

"Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful".

Wow, that's all super harsh. First of all, if you haven't watched the video, you are not making an informed decision on whether or not a key point is true: Was the puppy dead, or not?

That's the big to-do with the whole thing. The first marine is seriously over-acting, which lends credence to the idea that it's a joking way to dispose of an already dead puppy - the second marine won't touch it, also tends to make me think it's a dead body - and the fact that there's no doppler effect when the pup is thrown, ie, the sound doesn't get smaller as the dog gets farther away, as would be the case if the dog were truly alive and yapping when thrown.

The puppy *never moves* (which I do understand can be an effect of being held by the scruff).. but I mean, it doesnt even twitch a leg or blink an eye.

You can clearly hear other animals in the background, at least one whining, at least one barking. This also leads me to believe there were other animals living in the area (if not a whole family) and they happened upon this lil dead one and did what would be best, threw the body away from the others - albeit they did it in a way that they thought would be funny, and most wouldnt, doesnt make a difference to me.

These men kill HUMAN BEINGS in the line of duty and serivce to their country, and you expect them to be sensitive and mushy-gushy about disposing of a dead puppy's body?? And even if all that Ive said weren't true, and the puppy WERE alive, that question still applies - you expect him to be sensitive to a puppy when he's trained and paid to kill human beings? He's not a victim of bad parenting, he's not a sociopath or psychopath, HE'S A PRODUCT OF OUR COUNTRY! WE broke him down in boot camp, so we could build him back up to be exactly what WE wanted him to be and NEEDED him to be for us. Now he (allegedly, cuz Im sure it was dead) kills a puppy and we all want to murder him? Maim him? Turn our back on him? Where it was ok five minutes before that he were KILLING HUMAN BEINGS in the name of our country? For that you cheered, for this you scold. Aye yi yi. Let's get some perspective here.

This is 'the most disgusting thing you've EVER seen'?? For reals?! Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill :( Jee-zuz.

And for those of you who are in the military feeling the need to apologize on his behalf, don't. No apology is needed from any of you for the job that you do, ever.

I don't think enough of a mountain can be made out of this one. This man will be returning home and walking our streets after serving his country. So much for burying your head in the sand, because it soon could be a very real problem hitting a little more than close to home. Don't you think we are owed at the very least assurance that we are safe and secure?

I am sick over the debate about if the puppy was alive or not. Let's use some common sense here. I saw a frame where he was in the middle of tossing the puppy, and YES, the eyes had then closed and the puppy seemed to be bracing itself for the launch. I was unaware that dead puppies (let's play devils advocate here and say the thing WAS dead) are relaxed enough not to be stiff as a board with riggormortis when held up that way, but tense up enough to pull their rear limbs up and tuck their front paws. The dog would just dangle like a doll if deceased prior to being thrown.

Do a frame by frame if you are THAT demented and obsessed. Better yet, learn about anatomy, forensics and how remains behave... What a retarded issue to pick and debate about. The correct procedure in case there was a dead dog situation, is to burn the dead dogs remains to prevent IED's. Someone in their right mind would have disposed of it properly... not launched it, making sure you caught it on video with your butthole buddies even if it were a hoax.

Do a search on youtube just search "Iraq dog" and you will see how much these soldiers care for these animals that live their lives on the streets, eating garbage, treated like dirt by the people in that country. In one video a soldier playing with puppies says "Their future is running the streets, eating trash. Sucks." and another soldier adds "Probably killed by insurgents.." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJpP3AtbrcQhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plsiBB18e-s

Very well said Joan, there are sick people from all walks of life who unfortunately have very different motives for choosing a career than your average Joe. I also sort of agree with dusty. I say "sort of" because sometimes it is the product of the environment, other times there is nothing that could have prevented the outcome of the individual.

But I do believe that ultimately people are responsible for their own actions, and the people around them should have pushed for help if they noticed a huge part of humanity missing from the individual. It's unbelievable how this moron found two other morons just like him to chum around with the middle of the desert...

There are so many things to consider, there is no simple answer, investigation or approach to dealing with this. People need to get real and realize that a lot of these men and women are coming home with very real post traumatic disorders, some are fortunate to make it in one piece...